OpenText UX design team
The OpenText UX design (UXD) team built an efficient dashboard to deliver real-time reporting across complex, multi-team resource allocations
About OpenText
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Founded in:1991
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Employees:23,000
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Customers:120,000+
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Footprint:180 countries
Summary
Challenges
- Increasing complexity due to growing product portfolio.
- No visibility or structure for real-time reporting.
- Directive to transition to in-house tools to cut costs.
Solution
- Replaced Jira with a centralized resource management platform.
- Enabled real-time visibility into allocation and utilization.
- Scalable delivery across complex, multi-disciplinary teams.
Results
Eliminated manual reporting and saved time
Real-time visibility into complex resource utilization
Improved planning and management transparency
Challenges
- Increasing complexity
- Lack of visibility for real-time reporting
- CIO mandate to retire Jira
The UXD team within OpenText engineering faced increasing complexity as it supported a broad and growing product portfolio. As a multidisciplinary team spanning visual design, interaction design, research, and accessibility, the team plays a critical role early in the product lifecycle—partnering with product managers to define use cases and design solutions for diverse user audiences. However, coordinating these specialized disciplines across multiple product lines, tight timelines, and shifting priorities made consistency, visibility, and effective planning increasingly difficult.
These challenges were compounded by limited insight into resource allocation and team capacity. Leadership required real-time reporting to understand utilization and support informed decision-making, but existing tools did not provide the visibility or structure needed to manage resources effectively at scale. In parallel, the team transitioned away from Jira—a task management tool that lacked resource management capabilities—as part of a CIO-led cost optimization strategy. This shift highlighted the need for a more robust approach to project and portfolio management that could support planning, reporting, and governance across the UX function.
To address these challenges, the team sought a centralized project and portfolio management approach that would establish a single source of truth for work, resources, and priorities. The objective was to improve coordination across disciplines, enable real-time visibility into capacity and utilization, and support consistent delivery without compromising collaboration or accessibility requirements. By aligning teams around shared data and standardized processes, the team aimed to improve transparency, reduce manual reporting effort, and better support both leadership oversight and day-to-day execution.
Real-time visibility into resource usage has transformed our approach. OpenText Project and Portfolio Management removed manual reporting and provided accurate, on-demand data, enabling better planning and faster decision-making.
Solution
OpenText Project and Portfolio Management delivered scalable project management, real-time resource visibility, and multi-role project support. It streamlined resource allocation and utilization, cut manual reporting, and enabled data-driven decisions.
Products deployed
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OpenText™ Project and Portfolio Management
Cut through the chaos and connect strategy to execution
Replaced Jira with a centralized resource management platform
For years, the UXD team relied on Jira to track resource assignments and coverage across multiple product units. While Jira served as a task management tool, it was never designed for resource management, forcing the team to create manual reports to monitor allocations and prevent over-assignment. This approach became increasingly unsustainable as the team grew, and projects multiplied. The CIO’s cost-saving initiative to eliminate Jira accelerated the need for a more robust solution.
While working on the product UX, a team member identified OpenText Project and Portfolio Management as a potential fit. After an initial review, the solution was adopted, and the first setup took only a few weeks of part-time effort to learn the system and define processes. No formal training was required because only limited functionality was exposed to users and managers, and the UXD team handled internal training themselves.
Enabled real-time visibility into allocation and utilization
OpenText Project and Portfolio Management implementation addressed critical gaps left by Jira. Features like team-sharing functionality enabled resource allocation across pools, while self-service widgets allowed managers to create custom views of staffing data. Later enhancements, such as staffing profile statistics, provided visibility into utilization and capacity planning.
Today, OpenText Project and Portfolio Management supports a significantly larger scale: approximately 130 resources across 250 projects, compared to 50 resources a decade ago. The team spans multiple disciplines—interaction designers, visual designers, researchers, and accessibility specialists—often collaborating on complex projects requiring diverse roles. OpenText Project and Portfolio Management not only streamlined resource allocation but also introduced real-time insights into over- and under-assignment, eliminating manual reporting and reducing errors. This improvement is critical given the complexity of managing shared resources across business units, where reporting managers and allocation managers differ. Previously, managers lacked a consolidated view of their team’s assignments; now, OpenText Project and Portfolio Management provides transparency and control.
Scalable delivery across complex, multi-disciplinary teams
The solution also supports large, multi-disciplinary projects, such as the UX Design System, which involves five disciplines and accessibility compliance. Unlike Jira, OpenText Project and Portfolio Management allows multiple roles to be assigned to a single project item, making it ideal for projects with layered requirements. This scalability and flexibility represent a major operational improvement, enabling the UXD team to manage a growing team and portfolio efficiently while meeting management’s requirement for real-time resource allocation reporting.
The adoption of OpenText Project and Portfolio Management has transformed resource management for the UXD team, and the next evolution lies in leveraging AI and deeper integrations. AI adds significant value by automating insights and scaling decision-making. For small teams, manual tools like spreadsheets may suffice, but with 130 resources across 250 projects, AI-driven analytics become essential. AI can dynamically identify unmet demand, predict resource bottlenecks, and recommend optimal allocations based on historical patterns and project complexity. This capability enables leadership to make faster, data-driven decisions on hiring and prioritization, replacing static spreadsheets with real-time, intelligent forecasting.
Integration with roadmap management is the next critical step. Currently, the UXD team often lacks early visibility into upcoming initiatives, relying on product managers for updates. Connecting UX OpenText Project and Portfolio Management instance with roadmap OpenText Project and Portfolio Management instance would allow designers to receive dynamic notifications when new roadmap items are planned, especially those requiring UX involvement (e.g., new dashboard experiences). This proactive alignment ensures resources can be prioritized against incoming requests and strategic projects, reducing last-minute staffing challenges.
Similarly, product to market (P2M) integration will close the gap between design and development phases. Since UX work must be completed before P2M execution begins, linking these systems will create a seamless workflow from PM’s ideation to delivery, improving predictability and collaboration across business units. Together, AI and these integrations will elevate OpenText Project and Portfolio Management from a dynamic tracking tool to a strategic enabler, driving efficiency, scalability, and business agility.
Integrating OpenText Project and Portfolio Management with roadmap management will be a game-changer. It will give us early visibility into upcoming initiatives, so we can prioritize resources proactively and avoid last-minute staffing challenges.
Results
OpenText Project and Portfolio Management improved enterprise resource management with real-time visibility, removed manual reporting, and enhanced planning accuracy.
Eliminated manual reporting and saved time
The implementation of OpenText Project and Portfolio Management has significantly improved daily operations for the UXD team by automating resource management and eliminating manual processes. Previously, reallocating resources required constant communication and manual checks to avoid over-assignment. Now, changes made in the system update everywhere instantly, ensuring accuracy and consistency. Managers can easily view utilization tables to confirm that projects are fully supported without performing time-consuming calculations. This connected approach has streamlined collaboration and reduced dependency on daily coordination calls. OpenText Project and Portfolio Management platform’s robust reporting capabilities allow teams to generate both static and dynamic views of roadmap data, aligned with strategic initiatives such as AI investments, Titanium, FedRAMP, and Cloud 9. OpenText Project and Portfolio Management empowers executives to track progress, assess strategic alignment with corporate priorities, and make informed decisions quickly.
Real-time visibility into complex resource utilization
One of the most impactful benefits is real-time visibility into resource usage and capacity. OpenText Project and Portfolio Management provides accurate data on over-assignment and under-assignment, enabling proactive adjustments and better planning.
Reporting to management, which was previously a stressful, manual “fire drill,” is now effortless. Instead of exporting data from Jira and performing Excel calculations, managers can access dashboards or export clean reports directly from OpenText Project and Portfolio Management. This has saved significant time, improved data quality, and ensured that leadership always has reliable insights into what the team is working on and whether resources are aligned with priorities.
Improved planning and management transparency
Beyond operational efficiency, OpenText Project and Portfolio Management has elevated strategic decision-making. The system’s ability to track unmet demand helps inform hiring decisions and resource allocation across disciplines. Self-service widgets allow customized views for different stakeholders, giving product unit leads and managers autonomy to check progress without relying on manual updates. Overall, OpenText Project and Portfolio Management has transformed resource management from a reactive, manual process into a streamlined, data-driven workflow, improving transparency, reducing errors, and freeing time for higher-value activities.
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